To worry the impact of our lockdown will be worse long term than if we’d just lockdowned the vulnerable

[abreviation]

I think the proverbial is just about to hit the fan regarding redundancies. We have just started to receive hundreds of cvs from people who have lost their job.
It’s common knowledge how cancers are going undiagnosed and treatments delayed. God knows how many will die now needlessly.
Most other medical appointments cancelled or delayed. How many years will it take to catch up? Brain tumours missed, lazy eyes, hip displacements etc etc undiagnosed.
Education broken for loads of dc. How may dc just hanging on in there will be lost to education now. This will impact thousands of dc long term.
Struggling today with the way CV has been prioritised with no thought to anything else and the long term consequences of this.

[NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite]

The whole economy would have collapsed very quickly and would have been irrecoverable if only the vulnerable were in lockdown. The NHS would have been overwhelmed and collapsed very quickly. Mortuaries overrun. Infections would have been so high. There would be people lying dead in the streets. Decaying corpses at home unable to be buried. How long do you think you'd hold your job down for with people dropping dead around you?

[borntohula]

Yeah I think those who are currently very pro-lockdown will eventually wish it hadn't happened for this long, at least.

[Thighmageddon]

It was a novel virus, we watched our European counterparts and acted accordingly.

We have learnt a lot in a few short weeks.

I wholeheartedly agreed with the lockdown, all of it but I'm now one that says we need to re-start society in a managed way.

[Khione]

@NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite

The whole economy would have collapsed very quickly and would have been irrecoverable if only the vulnerable were in lockdown. The NHS would have been overwhelmed and collapsed very quickly. Mortuaries overrun. Infections would have been so high. There would be people lying dead in the streets. Decaying corpses at home unable to be buried. How long do you think you'd hold your job down for with people dropping dead around you?

What a load of absolute and utter rubbish.

There is no evidence for that whatsoever.

Partial lockdown made sense for the 3 weeks it was initially imposed in order to give the NHS, chance to get on top of the situation. That was what was suggested and that was what the British Public agreed to.

Beyond that time, everything outside that didn't involved large crowds in physical contact with each other could have gone ahead with minimal if any consequence.

I totally agree with the op. All the untreated illnesses, all the undiagnosed conditions, all the mental health issues will have far longer repercussions than CV19. Cornwall alone saw more than double their average rate in May this year and there are predictions that there will 150,000 extra deaths due to the above.

[Chipsahoy]

Yup. How many people will have not gone to get help because they were afraid? So lumps or strange mole, weird periods, sexually transmitted infections. Lazy eye or hip issues with babies. Speech issues for toddlers, mental health problems for children and adults. Eating disorders for example, possible adhd. Not refilling their medications for asthma or depression or any number of things. Urological issues, stomach problems. Etc etc All will have an impact.

[FourTeaFallOut]

Before we have this discussion, could you indicate how many people - as a percentage of the population - are vulnerable and if you'd include their family in the lockdown too @abreviation?

[highmarkingsnowbile]

Infections would have been so high. There would be people lying dead in the streets. Decaying corpses at home unable to be buried. How long do you think you'd hold your job down for with people dropping dead around you?

It is not Black Plague in 1348 .

[Homemadeandfromscratch]

What a load of absolute and utter rubbish.

There is no evidence for that whatsoever.

First the pandemic is far from over. The rates are not great at the moment. We might act like we're done because we are bored, but that doesn't change the facts.

Just look how many people died despite the measures. You don't need to be a rocked scientist to picture the effect of no measures. You might think you are immune and invulnerable. Great but it's a good thing that you are not in charge.

If you want info, look at other countries. Just because the UK is an island doesn't mean we are a different species.

[Homemadeandfromscratch]

It is not Black Plague in 1348
shame because we know how to treat that.

The convoys of dead bodies abroad is a sight many will struggle to forget.
We acted (not fast enough, not strictly enough, and maybe for too long)

[abreviation]

I think the 2 and a half million or so shielding should have locked down.

[QueenofmyPrinces]

Things are easy to say in hindsight.

At the time of lockdown it was the right thing to do.

[Porcupineinwaiting]

So are you arguing that there would have been less deaths without lockdown OP? Because what's happening now in countries with no lockdown doesnt look that good to me.

[nellodee]

I actually don't think there would have been dead in the streets, but only because I believe the one part of pandemic planning we still had in place was body removal. If you look at other countries that have not had any form of social distancing, several of them have had corpses stacked up. It's not hyperbole to assume it would happen here, it's British exceptionalism at its finest yet again to assume that it wouldn't.

[ClientQ]

OP - the shielding ARE locked down. Still
And Wales have extended it until August. So if you're not shielding you can go and shop and back to work and everything else. We are still inside....

[ChubbyPigeon]

We acted on the information we had

I dont think anyone has ever said that lockdown is a positive thing, or that we wanted lockdown to happen. I dont think anyone will look back and think 'it was wonderful we went into lockdown'. But we had a pandemic, and with the information we had lockdown was the best option.

I think people are conflating the affect of lockdown with the affect of a pandemic.

A pandemic happened, our economy is bad because of a worldwide pandemic. Its essentially a worldwide natural disaster.

I wish to god covid had never happened, its been totally shit. But I dont wish lockdown had never happened.

I also think that DCs education will bounce back. If we had locked down the vunerable plenty of DC still wouldnt have been able to go to school, and I think the affect on these DC would have been worse as they are affectively losing out compared to their peers.

[FourTeaFallOut]

I think the 2 and a half million or so shielding should have locked down.

But not their families? What about the vulnerable, as opposed the the extremely clinical vulnerable, would you have them lock down too or are they collateral damage in your plan @abreviation?

[NoHardSell]

You forgot the bluebottles buzzing round the dead bodies. For a plague that kills mostly the over 80s and, in comparison to the actual plague (25%) or ebola (50%) kills between 0'4% and 1% of the population, taking many weeks from infection to death, these images of people dropping down dead next to you are ... a tad .... overblown

No wonder people are terrified if they think that's what's going on here. God help us if we get a really scary pandemic.

[ChubbyPigeon]

Also the majority of people requiring outpstients hospital care are vunerable, by definition.

In ordee for these people to have a hope of getting medical care youve got to keep the viral transmission in the community low.

A lot of the people scared to visit the hospital are very vunerable, these are the people who are avoiding coming to A&E, their hospital appointments.

I dont see how your solution fixes this apart from making it even harder for them to access medical care.

[nellodee]

@NoHardSell, that scenario you draw is precisely what is happening in several countries as we speak, so slightly distasteful to be laughing about, to be honest. And considering ebola managed 11,000 or so deaths in the largest outbreak, I think your comparison back fires a little.

[Jingstohang]

@abreviation

I think the 2 and a half million or so shielding should have locked down.

But they're just the highest risk. What about the next category down? Should they just have been thrown to the wolves?

[Yousureaboutthat]

So only I and other shielders should stay at home, lose our incomes, and destroy our families security and our mental wellbeing, because we're ruining it for everyone else?

[abreviation]

OP - the shielding ARE locked down. Still
And Wales have extended it until August. So if you're not shielding you can go and shop and back to work and everything else

Not everything else by any means. What if you work in hospitality, tourism?
Schools are shut to the majority for the unforseeable.
NHS Therapies are mainly not available to most.

[NoHardSell]

Ebola kills so quickly it can't spread. With the plague, people were well in the morning and dead by the evening. We need to go find some grips. No, people were never going to be dropping down dead next to us at work. It's currently still a first world country so why anyone thinks bodies would be piling up in the streets, I have no idea. And the bluebottles was a poster from yesterday's nice little touch to their end of days scenario. It's all slightly ruined by looking at our near neighbours, Sweden, to see that actually a bit of social distancing while leaving schools open, leads to much the same outcome. I don't believe they left dead people piled up in the streets but happy to be corrected.

[Jingstohang]

@abreviation

*OP - the shielding ARE locked down. Still
And Wales have extended it until August. So if you're not shielding you can go and shop and back to work and everything else*

Not everything else by any means. What if you work in hospitality, tourism?
Schools are shut to the majority for the unforseeable.
NHS Therapies are mainly not available to most.

Let's just expose NHS workers to the virus over and over then shall we? It's their job after all.

[Porcupineinwaiting]

Ebola kills so quickly that it cant spread

So how do you explain the 2016 ebola pandemic?